Yurendra Basnett

Yurendra Basnett

Yurendra is a development economist specialising in trade and development policies. He has over seven years of experience advising governments, UN agencies and donors on Aid for Trade, WTO negotiations, and regional trade agreements. He has worked in Uganda, South Sudan, Sudan, Namibia, Nepal, Vanuatu, Samoa and the Solomon Islands.

Dr Yurendra Basnett leads ODI’s research and technical advisory work on trade and economic development policies. For the past eight years, he has been advising governments, bilateral and multilateral development agencies and civil society organisations on trade policy and negotiations, economic transformation, growth diagnostics, regional integration and labour migration. He has contributed to seminal reports on the post-2015 global development agenda, the Istanbul Programme of Action for LDCs, and the Doha Development Agenda. His in-country policy advisory and capacity building experiences span the Asia-Pacific as well as the sub-Saharan Africa region (for example in Nepal, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Samoa, Namibia, Uganda and South Sudan). He has an extensive and growing publication record, which include edited volumes, book chapters, reports, articles in peer reviewed journal, working papers, briefing papers and policy articles. His work has been referenced by IRIN News and Guardian, and has led to interviews with BBC, Xinhua News Agency and Al Jazeera. He holds a PhD in the political economy of development from the University of Cambridge where he studied under the supervision of Dr Ha-Joon Chang. His Masters was in Development Management from the London School of Economics and Political Science where he was awarded the William Robson Memorial Prize.